Some computing devices (e.g., mobile phones, tablet computers, etc.) provide a graphical keyboard as part of a graphical user interface for composing text (e.g., using a presence-sensitive input device and/or display, such as a touchscreen). The graphical keyboard may enable a user of the computing device to enter text (e.g., an e-mail, a text message, or a document, etc.). For instance, a presence-sensitive display of a computing device may output a graphical (or “soft”) keyboard that enables the user to enter data by indicating (e.g., by tapping) keys displayed at the presence-sensitive display.
In some cases, the computing device may present a continuous-gesture graphical keyboard (sometimes referred to as a “gesture keyboard” or “combo gesture keyboard”) with which a user can interact by sliding his or her finger over regions of the presence-sensitive display that are associated with keys of the graphical keyboard, thereby essentially gesturing a word to be input to the computing device. In other words, the user may input an entire word in a single gesture by tracing over the letters of the word output at a presence-sensitive display. In this way, continuous-gesture graphical keyboards provide an input method that allows the user to enter a word or group of words with a gesture. As such, a continuous-gesture graphical keyboard may allow the user to achieve a certain degree of efficiency, especially compared to one-handed tapping of a presence-sensitive screen (e.g., a presence-sensitive screen operatively coupled to or integrated with a computing device).
In some examples, a computing device that provides a gesture keyboard may rely on word prediction, auto-correction, and/or suggestion techniques for determining a word from a gesture input. These techniques may speed up text entry and minimize spelling mistakes of in-vocabulary character strings (e.g., words in a dictionary). However, one or more of the techniques may have certain drawbacks. For instance, in some examples, a computing device that provides a gesture keyboard and relies on one or more of the techniques may not correctly determine the word intended by a user based upon the gesture input entered at the presence-sensitive screen. As such, a user may need to perform additional effort to enter words using a gesture input.